California Gov. Gavin Newsom skewered the Department of Homeland Security’s tweet about “remigration” with a history lesson for Trump fans.
The official DHS X account posted a single word—“Remigrate”—with a follow-up post that pointed users to a government site promoting voluntary self-deportation.
Amid outrage at DHS’ use of a phrase popularized by far-right extremists, the California governor’s press office reposted the tweet with a reminder of President Donald Trump’s ancestry and a single-word reply: “Please.”
Alongside it was a biographical graphic of the Trump family from the History Channel, which noted that the president is the son and grandson of immigrants.
The graphic detailed how the family of his father, Fred, was German and his mother, Mary, was Scottish, and how none of the president’s grandparents had been born in the United States.
Civil-rights groups say the term “remigration” is rooted in far-right ideology advocating mass deportations, including of U.S.-born children of immigrants.
Definitions commonly describe it as a program of ethnic cleansing via large-scale expulsions of non-white immigrants and their descendants.
Newsom, whose American heritage stretches back many generations, was not the only one to call out the irony of son-of-immigrant Trump’s DHS-led “remigration” policy.
One social media user flagged that Trump had been presented with a gold-framed copy of his grandfather Friedrich Trump’s birth certificate by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House in June—a nod to the president’s immigrant roots.
Trump has previously used the word “remigration,” which is popular in global far-right circles, including once to criticize to Newsom’s policies.
With policy plans reportedly under discussion for an Office of Remigration, the president posted on Truth Social, “The Biden administration and Governor Newscum flooded America with 21 Million Illegal Aliens, destroying Schools, Hospitals and Communities, and consuming untold Billions of Dollars in Free Welfare.
“All of them have to go home, as do countless other Illegals and Criminals, who will turn us into a bankrupt Third World Nation. America was invaded and occupied. I am reversing the Invasion. It’s called Remigration.”
The term has been pushed by Martin Sellner, an Austrian far-right activist.
He went on to front Austria’s branch of Generation Identity, which anti-extremism researchers have called a transnational white-supremacist network.
In November 2023, Sellner laid out a “masterplan” for “remigration” at a closed-door meeting near Potsdam with figures from Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), neo-Nazis, and other extremists—an exposé that triggered mass protests across Germany.
AfD co-leader Alice Weidel has since publicly championed “remigration.” German authorities then barred Sellner from entering the country for three years.
The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
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